I don't think I agree with Mamet's quote, below. It's too demeaning of common tastes and expectations. My statement suggests that what we seek is always larger, more comprehensive, if not not more uniform; something that embraces contradictions and eliminates nothing. wc
________________________________ From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, January 1, 2013 6:16:53 AM Subject: Re: degraded aesthetics On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 8:21 AM, William Conger <[email protected]>wrote: > ...I think the best art alerts consciousness to an > invisible and supremely confident presence that we can suddenly imagine as > ourselves growing beyond ourselves. > > If that means that art should sensitize us, I agree. But that is only one of the many things that art can do for its audience: - The job of mass entertainment is to cajole, seduce and flatter consumers to let them know that what they thought was right is right, and that their tastes and their immediate gratification are of the utmost concern of the purveyor. The job of the artist, on the other hand, is to say, wait a second, to the contrary, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let's reexamine it. DAVID MAMET, *Salon* interview, 1997
